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You are missing the key piece of information here:

The instigators of this are TRYING to harm the United States. They do not have a vision of a better country at the end of this. They are enemies of the nation and a chaotic mess is exactly what they want to see happen. Its not SUPPOSED to work. A dysfunctional country IS the goal.

There will not be battle lines.

Take a look back at the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland to get more of a sense of what a modern civil war would look like. You can also look at the insurgencies in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, though obviously those countries are much different from the US than the UK is.

Preventive maintenance is always better than repairs...

If there's a group of 100 protestors and 10 of them have rifles and plate carriers, all of a sudden de-escalation can become a common goal.

If the same side is always the only one with guns, and they face no legal consequences from escalating to violence...

They're gonna keep doing it.

It sounds counter-intuitive, but there's a reason ICE isn't going after actual cartels and drug smugglers. They're picking the easiest targets, so now is the time for everyone to stop being an easy target while we're still legally allowed to buy this shit. Being visible armed is the only way to make cops want to de-escalate. If not, they're trained to "press the advantage" and keep you panicked, which doesn't work at all, but makes them feel tough.

Eventually Trump's gonna stop letting people buy guns, if you think an armed populace will ever be necessary, now's the time to get a kit together.

When it all goes to fucking shit… then what? Line up on sides like a dodgeball team and States start rebelling like it’s 150 years ago? Isolated city-states locked out from Federal support and interference? Trump declares himself President for Life?

It likely depends on what the actual circumstances of the violence is and the various responses from other government agencies.

In other fascist government takeovers the key differentiator is the role/reaction of the military. Does the military support the fascist leader or does it oppose them? In 1922 Mussolini had full control and loyalty from the military while the government did not. Alternatively, while not in 2013 President of Egypt Mohamed Morsi, which had was facing protests by the populous for his actions was deposed by the military in what their opponents label a coup. In the 1930s in the USA, there was a fascist group called German American Bund. These were the American Nazi party you may have heard of of which famous pilot Charles Linbergh was a member of. There were supposed plans to execute a fascist takeover of the USA deposing FDR. The military stepped up protection of FDR, so we can infer that FDR had the support the military. German American Bund was investigated, many arrested, and it was dissolved.

So in your theoretical, which way does the US military go?

Look up "Bleeding Kansas" and "bushwhacking".

That, except with pipe bombs, rented trucks, and ubiquitous modern firearms. It could get very ugly. I don't know what kind of appetite either side has for that long term.

Congress and the senate could stipnthis tomorrow. A serious, fucused pressure campaign on republicans would flip this script. Right now trump takes all the heat, and he doesnt cate becuase hes a moron and just doesnt care.

the house and the senate get to just ignore all of this. no one ever mentions them, like they have a free pass or something.

We should be following these people, their assistants, and their spouses 24/7 365 until they impeach this shitstain.

We can not allow them off the hook beacuse "republicans wont impeach", thats bullshit. they are just humans, and they will break like anyone else.

This is what it looks like when fascism is in the midst of overthrowing a country. And old-school democracy has very few defences against these tactics.

Passivism does allow for self defence and, in many cases, the defence of others.

They’re trying to provoke us out in the open. They’ve been trying to normalise violence against us (and have become alarmingly effective).

A few people have commented places where this has happened before; where government has been captured by the far right. Historians have identified key moments where a different action or approach had a high chance of changing the outcome. If we look at current events temporaly through the lens of those key moments, we can be far, far better informed.

I know some people have been doing that.

eta: We’re running Democracy2.0, and many more versions have been developed in the past 200 years. We’re driving a constitution designed to be transported by carriage. It’s incompatible with our recent technology.